The Seeker
by Stormcloud Empath
Summary: PostOotP. Semisongfic to 'The Seeker' by Pete Townshend. Forced to visit Aunt Marge with the Dursleys, Harry spends the drive learning a few things about himself...and Neville.


Disclaimer: Harry Potter belongs to J.K. Rowling.  'The Seeker' belongs to Pete Townshend.  I own nothing.

(AN: I originally meant to write this as a real songfic, but Harry is just impossible to write in first person.  I eventually decided to just have him listen to the song, because even though that's a weird and almost silly plot, this song reminds me too much of Harry to be left alone.  For the record, I do know who Timothy Leary was.  I just doubt that Harry would.)

**The Seeker**

Breakfast at Number Four, Privet Drive was noticeably tense.  Though there had not been any spectacular displays of shouting just yet, Harry Potter knew better than to expect that he would be able to slip quietly away to his bedroom, because his Uncle Vernon had been periodically glaring at him ever since the meal began, and Dudley was having a hard time suppressing a wide grin.  Clearly, something was about to happen, and Harry was willing to bet all of the contents of his Gringotts vault, double or nothing, that he was not going to like it.

If anyone had been around to take that bet, Harry would have been many quid richer.  As soon as Dudley had finished his last bite (which wasn't exactly a long wait), and without regard to the fact that Harry had barely eaten anything, Uncle Vernon stood up and turned on him. 'I' – he put extra emphasis on the word – 'have something to discuss with you, boy.'

Harry groaned audibly, not caring what the Dursleys thought.  'What's that?' Uncle Vernon asked, a dangerous edge to his voice.  'Don't you pull any ungrateful acts with me!  In fact' – and he sharply accented his next words – 'your _behavior_ is what we have to discuss.  We've been invited to dinner with Aunt Marge, and however ardently we all wished to leave you behind – '

' – she couldn't bear the idea of not having me to insult?'

Uncle Vernon's face began to take on a hue threateningly like purple, but Harry saw no need to apologise.  Forcing himself to keep his temper long enough to complete his speech, Uncle Vernon continued.

'No.  I did not think it possible to allow you to stay in the house alone for that amount of time, due to your – your abnormality.  Marge rarely has us to visit, and we shan't be wasting this invitation.  You'll be coming along, boy, and you'll be behaving _properly_.  There will be no – no _incidents_ such as that of her last stay here.  You will keep your mouth shut; you will not cause trouble; you will remember that you are still enrolled at St Brutus's Secure Centre for Incurably Criminal Boys – do you understand me?'

Harry didn't respond.  What with the recent revelations that his fate was sealed as either martyr or murderer, he found it difficult to care that Uncle Vernon's patience was wearing thin.

'I SAID, "DO YOU UNDERSTAND ME?!" ' Uncle Vernon bellowed, making Aunt Petunia jump.

'Yeah, whatever,' Harry answered icily, 'I won't turn Aunt Marge into a human hot air balloon again.  Fine.  May I be excused now?'

'No,' Uncle Vernon replied, smiling maliciously.  Dudley laughed.  'We're leaving now.  Get in the car.'

Resigning himself to his fate, Harry allowed himself a moment to ponder what might happen if a scene similar to Marge's last visit, three years ago, did occur.  Would he return to Grimmauld Place?  Would Fudge try to have him expelled again, or would he be too mortified to press charges?  He remembered what had happened when he had accidentally blown up Aunt Marge, and whom he had met for the first time, although he hadn't known it…

Sirius.

Harry felt tears welling in his eyes.  A lump formed in his throat.  It hadn't even been a month yet…

'Come on, boy,' said Aunt Petunia impatiently.  'What's keeping you?'

'Nothing,' Harry heard himself mutter, although 'Everything' would have been far more accurate.

Harry followed the Dursleys out to the car and climbed into the backseat, or rather, into the tiny portion of the backseat that was not being occupied by Dudley.

It was a comparatively long drive to Aunt Marge's home, and Harry did his best to pay attention to anything and everything besides the fact that he had very little room to move.  He stared out the window, watching trees flash past him.  Dudley interrupted his attempt to slip into mental numbness by loudly insisting that his mother turn on the radio.  Aunt Petunia obliged.  Harry, who had eaten almost nothing and was now staring out the window of a moving car, was just beginning to feel slightly sick when a song lyric caught his attention.

'They call me the Seeker

I've been looking low and high

I won't get to get what I'm after

Till the day I die.'

 There was only one word for it: haunting.  'They call me the Seeker' – he was the Seeker, wasn't he?  Or at least, now that Umbridge was gone, he was.  'I've been looking low and high' – that made sense, but the subsequent lines made Harry think that the song was hardly about Quidditch.  'I won't get to get what I'm after / Till the day I die' – well, that answered that.  Professor Trelawney's prophecy had explicitly stated that either he would kill Voldemort or Voldemort would kill him.  And he was certainly after Voldemort; Voldemort had murdered his parents.  He wouldn't get to get his sought-after revenge until what might very well be his last day.  He had never looked at it in quite this way before, but he was Seeking Voldemort every day of his life, just as he Sought the Golden Snitch in a Quidditch match.

That was hardly an encouraging thought, and the song wasn't through with him yet.

'People tend to hate me

'Cause I never smile

As I ransack their homes

They wanna shake my hand

Focused in on nowhere

Investigating miles

I'm a Seeker, I'm a really desperate man!'

After his fifth year, he couldn't deny some correlation there.  'People tend to hate me / 'Cause I never smile' – half the wizarding world had turned against him because he had dared to tell them that Voldemort's return was about to interrupt peaceful, idyllic lives.  'As I ransack their homes / They wanna shake my hand' – this one was more difficult.  Hermione would do better at trying to understand it.  Separately, the two pieces fit.  'As I ransack their homes' was more on how he, Harry, had supposedly been trying to cause panic and uproar.  'They wanna shake my hand' made some sense; Harry had been famous since he was barely one year old.  But he couldn't for the life of him see how the two went together; it seemed to be the ultimate contradiction in terms.  The last line, however, rang perfectly true: 'I'm a Seeker, I'm a really desperate man!'

After the events at the Department of Mysteries, and the revelations afterwards, Harry couldn't argue there.  In fact, he was such a desperate man that he was now trying to link a Muggle song to his own life.  It couldn't really be about him… could it?

'I asked Bobby Dylan

I asked the Beatles

I asked Timothy Leary

But he didn't help me either!'

Harry breathed a sigh of relief.  Obviously not.  Who was Timothy Leary, anyway?

Despite this reassurance, Harry did not stop listening, if for no other reason than that the song offered him a place to focus his attention other than the dreary outside scenery and Dudley's bulk.

'I learned how to raise my voice in anger

Now look at my face

Ain't this a smile?

I'm happy when life's good

And when it's bad, I cry

I got values

But I don't know how or why.'

Harry couldn't argue with any of it.  An angry streak had emerged in him.  He was human; he had emotions.  That was what he often wished other witches and wizards would understand.  He had had some happy moments during his fifth year, though most of it had been misery.  He had values, though he hadn't really known it until he'd looked into the Pensieve and found them challenged by the very person by whom he had always sworn.  And having grown up with the Dursleys, he didn't know how or why they had developed within him.

'I'm looking for me!

You're looking for you!

We're looking at each other

And we don't know what to do!'

Perhaps his Seeking revenge against Voldemort was Seeking himself, Seeking to confirm to himself who and what he really was.  But who was the other person?  Who was he looking at?  Who else didn't know what to do?  Ron?  Hermione?  Ginny?  Luna?  Sirius?  Dudley?  Professor Dumbledore?  Lupin?  Voldemort?  Bellatrix Lestrange?  Neville?

Neville.  Of course.  Neville Longbottom, his last ally in the battle at the Department of Mysteries.  Neville Longbottom, the other boy born as seventh month died.  Neville Longbottom, who too had lost his parents, though in a different way.  Neville Longbottom, who was too similar to him to be ignored any longer.

As Uncle Vernon pulled the car round to Aunt Marge's driveway, Harry knew what he would do to distract himself from her spiteful comments.  He would compose a letter to Neville, his fellow Seeker.  He didn't know just how much he could tell Neville, but he had a feeling that it would be the most honest correspondence he'd had with anyone in a long time.  Not that he hadn't had a chance.  Lupin had asked him to keep in touch, but he didn't feel ready to discuss Sirius just yet.  Perhaps, by writing back and forth to Neville, he would be.

FINIS


End file.
